Hear my Cry
by samettikettu
Summary: He found a journal and is now tormented with a question which will probably decide the way he will die. Will he go search for his brothers or not? Wait, what happened to them anyway? He didn't know so he's tempted to say Yes. But the journal's contents try to tell him otherwise. Is it okay to be scared? [AU, Brotherly ASL]


I will probably give myself nightmares thanks to this.  
Oh gawd What was I thinking?!

So yeah.  
If you have been keeping your eyes on my tumblr-account (samettisblog and/or samettikettu) you should already know this but I will tell it here too: **SCHOOL IS BEING A MASSIVE BITCH AND I HATE IT.** The last week is now and I still have two test to do! And thanks to our wonderful school system, I have summer INTERNET school. I'll be pretty busy, meaning I won't be updating until the end of the second week of June.  
This summer, I'm planning on updating as many fics as I can, probably finish Gang Wars and put Little Red Riding on a small hiatus just so I can sort out the plot. It has changed far too many times during the story.

This is a story I'm thinking about writing.  
What do you guys think?  
I'm not that good at this type of fiction but I hope I get better on my way! Because what it looks like now, some of my newest fics are going to be kinda like this.

Characters (c) Eiichiro Oda  
Story (c) samettikettu

This can also be found from my tumblr-accounts!

* * *

_How the things came down to this, I do not know…_

_To whoever finds this journal, I beg you… I beg you to help my unlucky friends to see the light again! Help them to get free!_

_Release them!_

_My name is Nico Robin and soon I'm going to die. All of my friends have gone before me after meeting with their cruel deaths.  
This is a journal of a dead man you are now holding in your hands. And knowing you have picked this up from the somewhere around the old school building that was abandoned a few years back. The reason behind the abandoning never came out to the public. Only some rumors about unrepairable mold damage and gas leaks – which were total lies.  
There was no mold or gas leaks at the school, there never was and there never will be! It was just a cover up story the school officials came up with to cheat with the taxes and other spends. _

_Why did you find this journal from the old school building?  
Let's say this is a contract.  
Yes, a contract, and unfortunately you can't turn down the offer anymore. Because picking up this cursed journal and opening it cast the journal's curse upon you. A curse you can't run away from unless you solve the mystery behind my friends' deaths and how to save my two other friends. If you do not, then… Well, I can't say anything else but Sorry.  
You can try putting this back down and walking away but believe me – it won't work._

_It will happen to you too._

_First you will start to hear footsteps that don't match with your own.  
Then you will start to hear voices, no, noises. Unhuman noises. Moans, groans, whimpers and growling.  
And after that, you start to feel someone's presence close to you. It's everywhere and all over you. The presence feels brooding and then you will start to catch glimpses of someone in the corner of your eye.  
You can't be in a dark room anymore because in there the presence is much stronger than it is in a lighter room. You spend time in silence, listening to every little noises you can catch and every sound makes you jump out of your skin.  
The presence makes itself even more clear and soon you start to see someone's shape inside the room. You can never see their faces but you can see their outlines. You can hear them laugh at you and you can feel the bloodlust coming from them. They are talking to you but you do not understand what they are saying._

_That's when things start to go wrong.  
You feel like losing your mind and you can't sleep. You can't sleep because every time you close your eyes, you can feel the presence over you and you wake up in the middle of the night finding yourself in a danger of suffocating. You try to take naps during the day, thinking the presence you felt at night can't possibly be there at daytime._

_Oh, but it can._

_You snap awake and find yourself from your balcony, one leg over the railing._

_At this point you make the decision to get the journal back and complete the mission I'm about to give you, but __**He**__ won't let you. He's already had a lot of fun with you so why quit?  
You return back here and try to find the journal. You look everywhere but the journal has been hidden from you and you have stepped into His playground. _

_This is where you can say Good Bye._

_**xxXxx**_

_But to you who has chosen to accept my mission, I salute you. You are braver than me. If it weren't for my friend, who suffered the fate of which I just told you about, I wouldn't have written this text into this old journal.  
He was a brave man and wanted to find out who was in charge of our two friend's disappearances. But he failed which cost him his life. _

_I shall now tell you everything I have found out during my own journey of solving the case behind my friends' disappearances.  
But once again, I must warn you._

_I failed too._

_I died on my way solving the truth and this journal is the proof that I ever existed. _

_Here's my advice for you: _

_You can hide and run from them, but they will find you eventually._

_I can't guarantee your safety. If they happen to find you and you can't get away in time, you are most likely going to get yourself killed._

_Good Luck and I'm really, truly sorry._

* * *

_There was ten of us.  
Me, Zoro, Nami, Sanji, Usopp, Franky, Chopper, Brook, Luffy and Ace._

_We were all best friends since secondary high and our friendship continued all the way to high school. Luffy was the one who got us all together in the first place. He was a cheerful young lad and always had this big smile on his face. He was very protective of us and Ace, his older brother by three years, was very protective of him._

_And I wouldn't blame him for that.  
They lived with their abusive grandfather, who liked to beat them up regularly and Luffy more than Ace. Because you see, Luffy wasn't the sharpest pen in the case. He'd say anything that came to his mind and would _probably_ think about it later.  
I remember one horrible day when Ace came to school his left hand in a cast. I went to ask him where Luffy was and he gave me this broken and lost look._

"_Luffy's in hospital."_

_Luffy didn't come to school for an entire month and when he came, the first thing he did was smile. No one asked him about the incident but the principal asked to see him and Ace. This was probably the third time during the whole school year the principal had asked to see the infamous brothers. They gave him the usual lie, Luffy fell down some stairs and broke his legs._

_They had another brother, whose name I do not remember.  
I met him only once.  
He was a bookworm, always had his nose stuck in the books and never came to hang out with us.  
He was the one Garp _didn't _touch._

_After the hospital incident, Luffy started to spend even more time at the school. He claimed that he was on an adventure – or at least trying to find one._

_Did you know that this school has a history all the way to the Second World War? Under the school is a maze-like basement. This building wasn't originally a school, but a mansion owned by a rich and healthy couple. They hid the Jews down to the basement and when the SS-soldiers went to look for them, they'd get lost into the maze and never return back to the surface. The basement has hidden safety rooms in which the people hid from their hunters who'd never find them._

_This building was renovated and turned into a school building after the Berlin Wall was torn down. And when this building became a school, the basement became off limits from the students and from the people who worked there. For their own safety._

_But of course our Luffy found his way down to the basement.  
And that's where the troubles began._

_I never found out what Luffy found down there but that something turned him into someone else. He was distant and was always pacing out and somewhat paranoid. _

_Ace was worried and so were we.  
Zoro, who was Luffy's best friend, tried to talk to him but he wouldn't open up to him. Every one of us tried to talk to him put he kept his lips sealed._

_At the same time, I noticed him keeping his eyes on the school's janitor. I didn't tell him that I had noticed this.  
Soon Ace seemed to notice this too._

_The school's janitor at the time was a man named Marshall Teach. He was a nasty man who, surprisingly, did his job well. He paid no attention to his hygiene nor did he respect other people. No one liked him, not even the teachers but there was no one else to take the job so the principal had to keep him until he'd find a better one._

_It was clear that Luffy had told Ace something, because soon they both would disappear to the basement and whisper things to each other, whole keeping their eyes on the janitor._

_Then the day came.  
Luffy disappeared._

_Ace was frantic.  
He couldn't stay put and would snap to us, even to his own best friends, Marco and Thatch. He became paranoid and jumpy.  
We wanted to help him but we didn't know how._

_For the next two days, Ace came to school with black rings under his eyes and was disoriented. He didn't pay any attention to us, not even to his friends._

_That day, after school, I saw him pick the basement's lock and go in. He locked the door after him._

_That was the last time we ever saw Ace._

_Did Luffy get lost down to the basement?  
Why did Ace seem so restless and where did he go?  
Did he find Luffy?  
Where are they now?_

_These questions live for you to answer._

_I do not know why, but I have a feeling that the janitor is involved into this somehow. Did he see Luffy sneak in and to teach him a lesson, he locked him in? If so, then why did Ace look like he had seen a ghost?_

* * *

_Please._

_Help me find the answers to these questions._

_Every one of us tried but as you can see, we failed._

_Soon after Luffy and Ace's disappearance, the principal announced that the school was to be shut down because of the gas leaks and mold. We all got separated and sent to different schools._

_A year after the disappearances, Zoro went first.  
But, like I told you at the beginning, he didn't come back sane nor _alone_. He rushed back to the basement and disappeared. We all heard from the case and decided to meet at the old school building together. _

_We entered the basement in groups._

_Usopp is a scaredy-cat and went with Brook and Franky.  
Nami went with Sanji and Chopper._

_I went alone and that was when I came across this old journal.  
I picked it up and took it with me without reading it. Why had I picked it up? Because this is Ace's old journal he always kept with him. I thought that maybe he had written down something before getting lost into the maze. I didn't realize it at first but I had unknowingly signed the contract. _

_I found Zoro.  
_**Dead.**

_I found Usopp, Brook and Franky.  
_**Dead.**

_I found Chopper and Sanji.  
_**Dead.**

_I found Nami…  
Scared to death._

_I brought her with me back to the surface and she was scared of every shadow and moving thing there was.  
That night, I read the journal and understood what I had unknowingly agreed on. I also understood that soon it'd be my turn to die if I didn't solve this case in time.  
The presence will get to me too, but slower than to my friends._

_Yes, Nami was sensing the presence too.  
She wouldn't leave my side._

_I saw her tear a page from this journal and hide it under her shirt. I saw no harm in that. But I should have.  
Unlike in Zoro's case, the presence got to her quicker and on the third night, I found her dead. She was lying in the bathtub. Her face was unrecognizable and her mouth hung open in silent scream. Both of her eyes were missing, and so was her tongue._

_I checked her stuff but couldn't find the piece of paper she had torn from the book. What had she done with it?_

_I saw no other way but to return to the basement._

* * *

_I've been here for hours now and still no sign of Luffy nor Ace.  
I'm starting to lose hope._

_The walls.  
It feels like they're closing in on me._

_It's suffocating and I feel nauseous._

_I can hear someone calling me._

_I can hear faint footsteps._

_They keep getting closer…_

_And closer…_

_Closer…_

_They're right behind me._

_I turn around but there's no one behind me._

_I walk forward, as fast as I can.  
I can hear the footsteps following me._

_The only source of light is my cell phone and it's running low on battery. Only 10% to go._

_Where can I go?_

_If I'd just find one of those safety rooms I've heard talked about._

_Someone just went past me!  
I'd see their shape!_

_The person was short but walked fast!_

_I try to call for them but they do not answer.  
Actually, I couldn't even hear their footsteps._

_The brooding presence is back._

_It feels hot, too hot._

_They're asking me something but I can't make out what they're saying. They get frustrated and start yelling at me but I stay silent.  
The burning gets worse and the darkness thickens. I can't breathe!_

_Just then, I heard a jingling from my left and the presence leaves._

_I can finally breathe again!  
I rush forward using my cell phone as the flashlight._

_Only 5% left._

_I find a barrel row and hide behind them.  
I'm sitting here right now, updating the journal._

_If I only could see in the dark.  
If I only could make out my surroundHey wait I can!_

_Usopp downloaded some application on my cellphone, a Nightvision Application. I just hope I have enough batteries for this._

…

…

…

_WHOEVER YOU ARE_

_WHOEVER PICKS UP THIS JOURNAL_

_PLEASE_

_FIND OUT WHY THIS IS HAPPENING_

_THIS IS NOT_

_THEY'RE NOT_

**[End of Journal 2]**  
**Will you accept the mission?**

**Yes/No**

**?**

* * *

**So, what's it gonna be?**

**A Yes or a No?**

**Think wisely.**

**Love,**

_**Ame.**_


End file.
